Electropoppin/Elektropoppin
This will be my first Christmas away from home - which, strangely enough, makes me feel a lot more at home in Berlin. So I figured it was time to pay attention to some Berlin musicians. But since I am going back to rainy old Ireland for New Year's I'm giving a bit of space to that as well. I can never decide on anything.
Jape is from Dublin. He makes music that sounds like a mass of funky digital elephants with bass guitars instead of trunks and boom-boxes instead of ears ( I don't know where this is coming from). For some reason, I never properly listened to his fine song 'Floating' till recently, but it's pretty damn fine. And the Raconteurs think so too.
Jape - Floating
The Raconteurs - Floating (live)
Barbara Morgenstern is from Berlin. There are no elephants in her music, but there are angry little insects aplenty. She's all electronic, and I didn't realise people knew much about her till another blogger emailed me this song, and then Pitchfork said they loved it, and then I felt bad for not paying more attention to a song this cool, and oh how I wept.
And now, you can too!
Barbara Morgenstern - The Operator
Stereo Total are from Berlin too, but they sing in French and English as well as German. I saw them support the Strokes in Dublin about six years ago, and I thought they were awful - except for their cover of 'My Way' which was cool. Now though, I have broadened my taste, and so I like them. They sound a lot like Berlin, actually. They're signed to Kill Rock Stars in the US.
Touche-Moi
I Love You, Ono
Party Anticonformiste
These Boots Are Made For Walking/Hello (live)
Okay, Bell is from New York, where I've never lived, but I'm sacrificing thematic cohesion to tell you how cool this song is - it's very short and it's a cover version, but it's really, truly excellent. All blips and beeps and keyboards and completely unabashed vocals (I know that makes no sense, but it works).You can get another of hers over at Ear Farm. Do so.
Bell - Moon River (it's really good)
Lastly, David O'Doherty is an irish comedian/musician, and I don't have any mp3s for him(edit: yes I do!), so you might be wondering what he's doing on an mp3 blog. It's just that he's really really funny. He's about to release a CD full of low-energy musical whimsy (he's quite the keyboardist) with Trust Me I'm A Thief (Jape's record label) and though I haven't heard it yet, I bet it's great. You can buy it as a download here, and watch FAQ to the DOD here.
David O'Doherty - Orange (live)
Also, here are some facts about David:
1. David O'Doherty is a man. Apparently if he had been born a girl, his parents would have called him Bridget.
2. David took home the bronze medal in the 1990 Under 14 East Leinster Athletics Championships. It was the high-point of his triple jumping career.
3. David does not smoke, though he once borrowed a cigarette from a girl in order to start a conversation. They ended up going out for some time. For the first few months she would continue to offer him cigarettes and he would decline, until finally he came clean and told her that he'd just asked for one to start their initial conversation. They broke up soon after that.
4. David has never met his boyhood idol, cyclist Stephen Roche. His obsession with Roche was such that he spent an entire afternoon when he was twelve years old standing outside the plush boutique managed by the cyclist's wife, on the off-chance that he might "just drop in."
5. Careers that David has set his sights on at different times in his life include pirate, detective, pirate detective, renegade dinosaur breeding scientist and triple jumper.
6. Actual jobs that David has had include telemarketing, photocopying and selling fish.
7. David can do one impersonation. It is Rolf Harris from the Denny sausages ad in about 1990 saying the word "rashers".
8. David has co-invented (along with his nephew Conor) a new word. 'Perschnaps' is a less likely version of 'perhaps'.
x: Will you be attending the concert?
y: Perhaps.
x: That girl you used to go out with will be there. The one you bummed the smoke off.
y: Then perschnaps
9. David's favourite joke is:
Qu: What's orange and sounds like a parrot?
Ans: A carrot.
10. His ambition is to appear in a knitting pattern.
Jape is from Dublin. He makes music that sounds like a mass of funky digital elephants with bass guitars instead of trunks and boom-boxes instead of ears ( I don't know where this is coming from). For some reason, I never properly listened to his fine song 'Floating' till recently, but it's pretty damn fine. And the Raconteurs think so too.
Jape - Floating
The Raconteurs - Floating (live)
Barbara Morgenstern is from Berlin. There are no elephants in her music, but there are angry little insects aplenty. She's all electronic, and I didn't realise people knew much about her till another blogger emailed me this song, and then Pitchfork said they loved it, and then I felt bad for not paying more attention to a song this cool, and oh how I wept.
And now, you can too!
Barbara Morgenstern - The Operator
Stereo Total are from Berlin too, but they sing in French and English as well as German. I saw them support the Strokes in Dublin about six years ago, and I thought they were awful - except for their cover of 'My Way' which was cool. Now though, I have broadened my taste, and so I like them. They sound a lot like Berlin, actually. They're signed to Kill Rock Stars in the US.
Touche-Moi
I Love You, Ono
Party Anticonformiste
These Boots Are Made For Walking/Hello (live)
Okay, Bell is from New York, where I've never lived, but I'm sacrificing thematic cohesion to tell you how cool this song is - it's very short and it's a cover version, but it's really, truly excellent. All blips and beeps and keyboards and completely unabashed vocals (I know that makes no sense, but it works).You can get another of hers over at Ear Farm. Do so.
Bell - Moon River (it's really good)
Lastly, David O'Doherty is an irish comedian/musician, and I don't have any mp3s for him(edit: yes I do!), so you might be wondering what he's doing on an mp3 blog. It's just that he's really really funny. He's about to release a CD full of low-energy musical whimsy (he's quite the keyboardist) with Trust Me I'm A Thief (Jape's record label) and though I haven't heard it yet, I bet it's great. You can buy it as a download here, and watch FAQ to the DOD here.
David O'Doherty - Orange (live)
Also, here are some facts about David:
1. David O'Doherty is a man. Apparently if he had been born a girl, his parents would have called him Bridget.
2. David took home the bronze medal in the 1990 Under 14 East Leinster Athletics Championships. It was the high-point of his triple jumping career.
3. David does not smoke, though he once borrowed a cigarette from a girl in order to start a conversation. They ended up going out for some time. For the first few months she would continue to offer him cigarettes and he would decline, until finally he came clean and told her that he'd just asked for one to start their initial conversation. They broke up soon after that.
4. David has never met his boyhood idol, cyclist Stephen Roche. His obsession with Roche was such that he spent an entire afternoon when he was twelve years old standing outside the plush boutique managed by the cyclist's wife, on the off-chance that he might "just drop in."
5. Careers that David has set his sights on at different times in his life include pirate, detective, pirate detective, renegade dinosaur breeding scientist and triple jumper.
6. Actual jobs that David has had include telemarketing, photocopying and selling fish.
7. David can do one impersonation. It is Rolf Harris from the Denny sausages ad in about 1990 saying the word "rashers".
8. David has co-invented (along with his nephew Conor) a new word. 'Perschnaps' is a less likely version of 'perhaps'.
x: Will you be attending the concert?
y: Perhaps.
x: That girl you used to go out with will be there. The one you bummed the smoke off.
y: Then perschnaps
9. David's favourite joke is:
Qu: What's orange and sounds like a parrot?
Ans: A carrot.
10. His ambition is to appear in a knitting pattern.
posted by shane at 10:09 PM
5 Comments:
Hey up,
Do you need to be signed up to the website that's hosting the Bell mp3? It's re-directing me to http://filelodge.bolt.com/index.php when I click on the link in the post.
Cheers!
No, it should work as a normal download though... right click and save as.
you are so funny. i hope you have a great christmas and new year's. i think christmas in berlin would be wonderfully old-fashioned in a really good way, but i suppose i'm just romanticizing it.
thanks for the barbara morgenstern. i have another tune by her that i really enjoy, "the grass is always greener." quite lovely.
and i liked the bit about the elephant, etc., whatever weird place in your brain it stems from!
love Bell, love love. glad you found her music. nice post here too - i also really like Barbara Morgenstern.
Ah, glad you enjoyed Barbara (and that Pitchfork did, too). I originally heard her via the Dntel remix EP of "This is the Dream of Evan and Chan," and it was neat to discover her own material. As far as more German beeps and bloops go, the Morr Music label is great, and I've really enjoyed Ellen Allien & Apparat's newish one (also Pitchfork endorsed, for what it's worth).
Thanks for all the other recommendations!
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