Hope everyone has a great weekend

Ok, so over the weekend I found a couple of really interesting musicians / bands, one of those are ‘Jean Parlette’.

Jean Parlette are a quartet from Northern Holland, who have a really interesting sound they call “folktronica”, which is scarily similar to some of my new material for the album. I may steal their genre term and brand it as my own.. mwuahaha

I’ve always craved that sound which falls somewhere between electronic and cinematic, and these guys/girls have it pretty much nailed down to a degree, with lovely electronic elements blending beautifully with cello, violin, guitar and vocals.

I’m not sure now how I ended up with their material, but they currently have a free EP for download, which includes the excellent “Out Of Time” and “Chaos” tracks, which really make this a great listen. The EP also features the emotionally unstable track “see”, a delicate, somewhat minimal arrangement with a slow, growing heartfelt feel to it – lovely stuff.

Also, you’ve got to admire the artwork too

Honestly, download it, listen to it, enjoy it greatly, and finally go ahead and buy their album – I did and can’t wait for it to arrive!!

*Sings “chaaaaaooos.. all around me…. chaaaaaaaoooosss.. in my head…”*

Where Can I Find The FREE Download?
Much Smaller EP

Where Can I Find Out More?
JeanParlette.nl

LAST.FM
http://www.last.fm/music/Jean+Parlette

dude, seriously… you have to watch this track live.

“How to disappear completely” is one of my favourite tracks by Radiohead, fullstop, and so to see this performed live with 6 separate Ondes Martenot’s and respective performers (sir Greenwood included) is a proper treat.

Odd that I just wrote about the Ondes Martenot about 5 mins ago, and then randomly saw a link to this on YouTube..

anyhoo – enjoy, lights off and music up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chE1_g3GAWw&feature=related

Well, I went to the cinema on Wednesday (Orange Wednesdays – wohoo) and finally got to see There Will Be Blood!!

I’ve been waiting for this since I first heard Johnny Greenwood (radiohead member) was scoring the soundtrack back in August 2007, so it’s been a while in the waiting After listening to his work for Bodysong (back in 2003), which had a warm but slightly sinister sound to it, I was intrigued to hear where he’d go from there. Strangely enough, I never saw the film Bodysong, but I’m sure it won a Bafta or similar..

Anyway, I know Johnny has been commissioned by the BBC to score and collaborate on some works for documentaries and such, and as this is something I’d love to do I’ve tried to keep in the loop since.

All in all, I really enjoyed the film, and the score worked so well for it too. Reminded me of an old media studies project I did on “The Outlaw Josie Wales” back at school.. really desolate, with a solid edgy feel throughout. Daniel Day Lewis played such a good role too, and he played it brilliantly – can’t falter him at all.

The soundtrack is very much an experiment of sounds and textures in my eyes.. each piece having a feel and soundbed. Apparently he used a “Ondes Martenot” (see this in action here). Watching that video, I think “where I end and you begin” features this instrument too.

I read or heard somewhere that he had an idea to record every single note played by a violin, and then sample and play every single note at the same time, gradually drawing out different chords and harmonics just by altering the volume over time. From what I remember he said it worked really well with a synth, but in real life just sounded terrible.. but in areas of the soundtrack you’ll hear this idea, even if on a smaller scale, at work

Anyhoo, I’d recommend you go see the film. From the opening title you’ll be hooked so don’t miss it!