Jen Dan - November 12, 2021 - TOP 10 SONGS - #56

ACE TRACKS FROM GREAT MUSICIANS

Written and produced by Twin Rains
Mixed by Twin Rains and Matt Rideout
Mastered by Brock McFarlance

The Garden

Open Mouth, Open Heart

For What

Heavy

Knifeplay - Hurt Someone

Blue Sky / Grey Heaven

False Positive

Blame

Blame (feat. Miki Berenyi)

The Danish-born Berlin-based singer-songwriter Agnes Obel landed a pan-European hit with her disarmingly beautiful debut album ‘Philharmonics’. After seven weeks at #1 in Denmark and hitting the Top 10 in both France and the Netherlands, the deluxe double CD version of the album will be released in the UK on May 2nd on Play It Again Sam.

Entirely self-produced and performed, ‘Philharmonics’ opens with the instrumental piano piece ‘Falling, Catching’ which sets the tone for Obel’s classically inspired songwriting. The next track, ‘Riverside’, flows with a depth of emotion embedded with further character by Obel’s love of combining her sweet melodies with carefully considered lyrics that evoke the song’s innate sound. ‘Just So’ works a similar trick, its blend of melancholy and optimism perfectly encapsulated into the opening line ‘Black turns beat me bright.’ Elsewhere, with ‘On Powdered Ground’, ‘Brother Sparrow’ or her interpretation of John Cale’s ‘Close Watch’, she melds different moods and atmospheres, all indelibly linked by the brittle majesty of her music.

The deluxe edition of the album adds a second CD featuring six tracks recorded at Obel’s recent acclaimed residency of sold-out shows in Copenhagen and five instrumental piano performances.

As a child, Obel was subconsciously guided into music by the influence of her mother and father, who would play and listen to a blend of the classical greats, folk music like Jan Johansson and the timeless sounds of Roy Orbison. After discovering the likes of Portishead and Elliott Smith as a teenager, she began writing her own piano-based songs, but it wasn’t until she moved to Berlin in 2006 that she began recording an album.

Many of the songs on ‘Philharmonics’ have subconsciously found an audience through their use in film and television. ‘Just So’ soundtracked a Deutsch Telekom advert, which gave Obel the unusual combination of having a song that everyone knew while having almost no profile as an artist herself. But soon opportunities presented themselves and continue to do so. One of Obel’s earliest breaks came when three of her demos featured in cult director Thomas Vinterberg’s film Submarino – ‘Riverside’ earned her a Robert Award (Denmark’s equivalent of the Oscars) for Best Song of the Year. Her music also reached a bigger North American and international audience when ‘Riverside’ was used in Grey’s Anatomy.

iTunes extended Obel’s profile further by requesting an exclusive release of ‘Philharmonics’ and highlighting Obel on the home page of their North American website. The attention of the press has been consistently positive with Vogue and culture magazine Telerama producing in-depth features in France, while Obel will also feature in both the North American and European issues of TIME.

Official website – www.agnesobel.com
Official facebook – www.facebook.com/agnesobelofficial
Official twitter - www.twitter.com/agnesobel
Official youtube - http://www.youtube.com/agnesobel


Agnes Obel - Riverside (Lulu Rouge Remix)

Sam Amidon - How Come That Blood

Taken from the new album "Where It Hits You" - out now on Loose.

JIM WHITE - Chase The Dark Away

Buy it now: http://smarturl.it/AnAwesomeWave

An Awesome Wave

Dissolve Me

For his blogs 4th birthday Mr @Peenko asked 4 bands/artists to record a new song, which had to be strictly no more than 2 minutes long. Then he had a proper artist provide some beautiful artwork. He put them together as an extremely limited set of flexi postcards which are now available here:

http://peenkopostcards.limitedrun.com/products/505288-flexi-postcards

They look beautiful huh?

They all sound great too as they were all mastered by Jonathan Huxtable of Small Fish Recordings. 
http://www.smallfishrecordings.co.uk/

Buy a Flexi

All My Days Are Shorter

Melbourne sister duo Charm of Finches delivers intricate folk-pop that is simultaneously graceful and darkly bewitching. Their seamless blood harmonies traverse melancholy and wonder in equal measure.

The sisters, Mabel and Ivy Windred-Wornes, released their third full length album Wonderful Oblivion in 2021 through New York-based label AntiFragile Music to critical acclaim. They have since toured extensively through the UK, Europe and Canada in 2022/23.

Winners of the Australian Folk Music Awards Best Folk Album (2022) and Music Victoria Best Contemporary Folk Act (2021), their music has been nominated twice for the prestigious Australian Music Prize.

In February 2023 the sisters spent a month in rural Nova Scotia recording with acclaimed Canadian producer Daniel Ledwell (Jenn Grant, Oh Pep!), inspired by the frozen beauty of the landscape and their transient life on the road with their music. The result is their fourth studio album to be released in 2024.