The Black Keys - El Camino

Made for walking down the street and feeling like a badass. Outstanding even on first listen.


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Peaking Lights - Hey Sparrow

Burning the candle at both ends is a messy game, but it's surprisingly easy to clean off a library desk. The only real option in saving your sanity in these T-24 hours till exam scenarios is 3.56 minute bursts of escapism. For once this week, the numbers have come out just right.

Peaking Light's colours come from the duo Aaron and Indra from Rah Dunes and Numbers. Hey Sparrow's walking bass, reminiscent of 'Golden Brown', leads you by the hand through an enchanted forest of rolling feedback and endless echos. The foundation of this song is a beautifully sweet and simple pop song. So, drift off, press reset, and when you open your eyes again you'll have a smile pulling at the corners of your mouth.

Out now on Domino Records

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Recommended Remix: Hey Sparrow (D'Eon Remix)

Jamie XX does it again...

Sourced from Pitchfork

I love the culture of remixing at the moment, especially the specially curated remix albums from the likes of Radiohead with 'TKOL RMX'. I feel its very similar in style to the way classical composers composed 'studies' and variations on previous composers, making something completely original and just as masterful as the original. Jamie XX variation on Bloom titled 'Bloom (Jamie xx rework 3)' is a perfect example. This track is a negative of his previous version, and like film negatives, it has it own aesthetic beauty. Jamie XX has done it again.

Bloom_Jamie xx Rework Part 3 by Radiohead

Wirtschaft Traume

Universitaet Mannheim does exam times before Christmas, this is why this post might seem a little bit premature. I love the course I do, but it doesn’t mean I dont need a little release from exam revision. So I've started making a little blues EP, currently going by the working title 'Something Blue and Something Borrowed'. Fear not, I won't subject you to that, remember I only put quality music on here...

What I do have is my sketchbook. I really hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I do.

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Atlas Sound - Terra Incognita

The first notes on 'Terra Incognita' are crisper than any i've got out an ATM. They are physically trying to keep the rolling fuzz away; calm, collective, but still perspiring. Until eventually being enveloped by a wall of swirling vibrations. And with the fantastically self-conscious lyrics battling for the answer to what love has in store, it makes for a song that does the thinking for you.

James Blake at Vega, Copenhagen.

"Understated, humble, intimate and just plain beautiful. Goosebumps never felt so good."

- Camilla James, 14th November 2011

When Saints Go Machine - Konkylie LP

It would seem that Carlsberg and Tuborg are not Copenhagen’s only intoxicating export. The Danish synth-pop quartet When Saints Go Machine are achieving growing notoriety, despite their incomprehensible name. Fortunately, their most recent album Konkylie (meaning: Conch shell) released back in June, is not at all misunderstood. With an abundance of seductive ‘shakes and shivers’, front man Nikolaj Manuel Vonsilds’s quivering vocals inject a compelling vulnerability to the set, complementing the haunting synths, in tracks such as Parix and Konkylie. Comparable to the likes of the ethereal Anthony Hegarty (Anthony and the Johnsons) Nikolaj maintains an irreplaceably constant performance throughout this crescendo of an album.

Avoiding the trap of the, occasionally, contrived ‘electro-pop’ genre, this album is certainly not accidental either. The tracks effortlessly flow into one and other, with Jets serving as a pivot between the low tempo introduction, and the final high energy conclusion of the ensemble. The album lifts your mood unconsciously, and before you even realise it, you are grabbing a bottle and preparing to dance disastrously with yourself. Admittedly, this album takes a second listen before it really registers, and it may be lacking in intensity against its contemporaries. But as any GCSE English student will tell you, the conch in Lord of the Flies serves as a vessel, permitting an individual to talk. This album is the conch, and in my opinion, it deserves to be sat up and listened to. 

Words by Camilla James, Copenhagen Connection Correspondent.

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